Séan Alonzo Harris: Slowing Down with Art in a Speed-Obsessed World

So we're really fortunate to have you here. Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. It's great. It's great to see you again, by the way. Yes. It's great to see you too. I think we used to overlap and intersect quite a bit, and then it's been a little while. So I've been really intrigued by what I've seen coming out of your work over the last few years. Oh, thank you. Tell me how you think things have evolved for you and things that you're doing differently than perhaps when you and I first met a decade ago. Well, I mean, life, just maturity and things happen and the world has changed so dramatically over the last year, six months, two years, five years, whatever. So the pattern of thinking has to change. And so right now, the body of work that I'm most passionate about, that I'm working on, I haven't even shown yet, which is the exact opposite of what anything that I've ever done before. So that is, it's more meditative and it's, it's no people in it. It's very quiet and soft and just a reflection going back and just take a respite to think and gather your thoughts so that you can go on and be creative or to make it through the world or whatever, make it through the day. Well, that is interesting because I know I was looking at your series play hard and also I'm not a stranger and those, the play hard obviously is very action oriented and I'm not a stranger and play hard, both very people oriented. You have a lot of people that appear in your work. So what caused you to turn in the direction of not figures at all? Okay, so Play Hard is a portion from a larger body of work. So, and that was based from Fox Field or Bayside, Portland and where Fox Field is, that was basically that story or that body of work was about gentrification and the I, not a stranger was, my wife works at Colby, so we moved to Waterville and Waterville Creates, and Colby Museum of Art partnered to sponsor me to create these works of a changing water bill, what it looks like now and thinking about it immediate right now to a hundred years past and seeing what that is and claiming that I am not a stranger, claiming that the place of Waterville is all people are welcome kind of. And that was also a nod to another photographer, one of who I call one of my masters, Irving Penn, and I adopted some of his ways to create that space for the people in Waterville to take ownership, almost like being on a corner or in a corner. So it's very exciting. So those were bodies of work that had some sort of a foundation that you were working on. And this current body of work is a very different foundation. I did a artist residency on Surf Point, which is artist. It's right on the beach and everything. So I'm there and I had all these grandiose ideas and I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this, this, this, this. And you get there and you're like, you're on the water, you can hear the water as you sleep. And I'm like, wow, this is really, really therapeutic. So I just kind of started thinking about this and stuff, listening to music and going and waking up the first light and take my camera out and shooting and what I mean throughout the day. And then after a while, you're learning characteristics of what the ocean is doing and stuff. And you're like, wow, the ocean looks big today. The ocean looks small today, the ocean. You know what I mean? Oh wow, it was blue yesterday. Now it's green. And all of these different characteristics that happened. And then you start thinking about a lot of things that the history of what goes on the ocean and thinking about how powerful the ocean is, how soft the ocean is, how relaxing the ocean, how scary it is, and all of these things that just happen. So just by going that and doing research and thinking things through, and basically, while the whole time I was doing this, I was listening to music most of the time and trying to listen to complicated pieces, more things that challenge you're hearing, but also at the same time looking at this very powerful thing that's coming in and out at you and thinking about the time that a song plays. If I listen to a piece that's nine minutes, could an individual look at a photograph for nine minutes today? And just kind of playing around with, so thinking things through really wanting to create a body of work to challenge the viewers to sit with something for a while and hint, meditative or hint critical thinking through an image. This reminds me of something that you were talking about before we started recording, which is this idea of people's attention span. And I know that your background, you studied formally at the Art Institute of Boston. You spent time training at the main media workshops even you have a very rich academic intellectual background in photography. You also have a rich experiential background in photography, so you understand the history and the context and the making of photographs. And in this day and age, that's not true of everybody and people's attention spans are not maybe as long as they once were. So what you're describing as your current body of work, it almost sounds like kind of a response to that lack of attention and an invitation. Okay, let's look at where we're at as far as everything, anything that you want to do. I mean, we have computers, we have phones, we have watches, we have TVs and all of those things that come at us. Me being a creative, I'm always going at towards something and sitting with that thing for a while and trying to figure it out, problem solve or whatever. And for instance, if you go to a museum today and you see how people go through a museum or even the gallery for instance, people don't sit and look and study. When I was growing up, people looked sit and study like you had to wait for someone to, you was polite. You had to wait for someone, and that person could be there for 10 minutes looking at one thing. People used to go to the galleries or four days because they needed to get, and that was the time that it would take someone to get through a show. Today someone goes through and they're done, and it's just like that whole idea. And the artist itself could have taken, I do platinum plate and printing. It could take me three days to create a print that I'm satisfied with from start to finish in the printing process, not the shooting, but I just feel that we miss so much in the middle. You know what I mean? We don't think about all of the learned experience in the middle, that stuff we don't do anymore. So it's almost like if you bring up a Chatt BD, it's like, I love doing puzzles. I'll do a puzzle and it'll take me three days and then I love doing puzzles. I'm going to hire this robot and I'm just going to say, complete this puzzle. And that's my prompt. And the puzzle's done. Someone comes over and says, wow, that's a great puzzle. That must've taken you a long time. No, it took me two minutes. You know what I mean? But they didn't touch the pieces. They didn't see, they didn't try, they didn't, oh, this is upside down backwards or any of that stuff. It's gone. It's almost like our greatest attribute as humans or whatever is kind of stepped aside. So I think, I hope that there's a resurgence of, it's great to see albums being sold again. People literally have to get up and turn it, or it's great that film photography is mentioned in the breadth of this great, you know what I mean? And also people sewing their own clothes and those things are so awesome to happen, but we just have to create a space. We have to continuously create space for that. I'm thinking about my granddaughter, she was born in March and before I even knew she was a twinkle in anyone's eye, I Began knitting a baby blanket for her. And it took me, it's a very small blanket. It took me a very long time and woven into that are the places that I took it while I was knitting it, the mistakes that I made, the stitches I had to go back and pick up again the kinesthetic element of that. And so what's coming up for me as you're describing this, is the experience that ends up having a piece of art being imbued with really because of the process of creating that art. So how do we convince people who think that art is essentially a visual medium in the moment? You just need to stand there for a minute to get an impression. How do we convince people or invite people really, would you like to slow down for a minute? Would you like to stand here a little longer? Would you like to be here with me as we enjoy this art together? How do we make that alluring to people? That is a paradigm shift. And also I think that as creatives or creative people, I think that we have to make that a part. We have to consider that as part of our practice as well. How is the viewer going to take this in? Is there prompts I'll use that, I'll steal that from ai. Is there prompts that we could weave into our work that can pause people, you know what I mean? Or have them think like, wait a minute, there's this over here and I have to go way over there to actually get the final piece. You know what I mean? Or things that involve more the things that will involve people to actually engage with what they're doing differently. I think that we have to think that through a little bit because I, the greatest thing I believe that humans have is their creativity and the creativity. So we'll always create no matter what, and it will evolve in creating as well no matter what. But so I just think that we just have to think differently. We got to think beyond Instagram. We got to think beyond those kind of things. As a lover of art, we also have to respect what we're looking at. You know what I mean? And give it the thinking about someone painting a painting from hand. That painting might've taken years and it deserves more than a minute of viewing because there's certain things in there that you're just not going to digest. There's no way that you can digest years of work in a minute. You know what I mean? It just can't happen. You can get the gist of it, but not the full body or the breadth of it. You know what I mean? The weight of it. So I think as viewers or, I mean, we have to respect that space as well. I was interested to read about some of your inspirations as an artist that you talked about, Helen Levitt, James Van Dezi, Langston Hughes, Nina Simone. Just that's a very rich grouping of people across genres that are inspiring you. And it seems as though you're drawing from the creativity that occurs, not just in the visual field, you, you're drawing from creativity that really is from all around you. Has that always been the case for you? Well, I think that's also maturity as well. I believe that as a creative, that you have to create your own encyclopedia. And within that encyclopedia, I think that it shouldn't be, like for me, for instance, it should be painters and sculptors and writers and musicians and historians and those kinds of things, and just pull from all of those. Because if I was just to study just photography, then I would be missing so much of the world. You know what I mean? My voice would be, I could take beautiful photographs, but my voice itself would be a lot smaller. So I have to go talking with, sometimes when I talk with young photographers, I was like, listen to something that challenges you, something that you're like, oh, I hate it. But listen to it beyond that and challenge yourself and try to figure out cues within that so that you can say, oh, that's interesting, or that, you know what I mean? Versus just like, oh, I hate it, so I'm not going to listen to it. So I think a lot of times the people that inspire me, sometimes they might not have the first time I might've looked over them. And over time, I've grown to appreciate what they bring to the table because it happens very often where I see a body of work and I'm like, oh, it's not that much. And then I read about the person, I'm like, oh, I get it. You know what I mean? Because I think some art is created just for art's sake, but some art is created because people have to do it, and their story is just as much, just as important as their art. You know what I mean? And how they got to their art is sometimes so incredible and precious. So yeah, I think that, yeah, you should go out and challenge yourself, you know what I mean? For things, stepping waters that you've never been in just to see what happens. And I also think it creates layers, tonality to whatever you bring to the table, it makes you much more interesting to talk to because you were coming from so many different places. Well, that I think is very true. And as we were coming into the conversation today, we were talking with my husband, Kevin Thomas, who has his own podcast. He does ham radio. He now is sponsored by a company within the ham radio world. And you said, oh, that's so interesting. And I have this interest in tube amps. And I said, wow, ham radio, I never knew anything about, but here's Sean Alonzo Harris, and now he's talking about two amps. What are those? Tell me about tube amps. So I guess since you're sitting here, can you tell me what are tube amps? Because you're so right. It's so interesting when you learn new things about people. Well, I can tie this into my photography actually, throughout the years I've listened in the Dark Room. I've always picked out a slew of music that I would print to, and I started with the same music, and I ended it with the same music because it all had to do with rhythm and timing. Because in the Dark Room, you're dodging and burning. You kind of want to keep that same cadence. And through that, or I can even go back further. When I was in college, I lived right next to a used record store, and I'd walk by the record store every day, and I'd see these beautiful album covers, and then I'd go in. So I'd start buying jazz album covers, so gorgeous and beautiful, but hints to the Dark Room to bring on the practice with listening to music, and then hints to talking with other photographers, older photographers who I figure mentors and that kind of thing. And we end up talking about music sometimes more than photography. And we talk about music in terms of tone and layers and texture and all of these things and space and all of these things. And so hence to today where you talk about something like a tube amp where it's this because it has distortion, but it's good distortion, which creates space and layers and things like this. So it gives a more three-dimensional sound. So it's so intriguing to listen to that. And so it's one of those things when I'm listening to this and talking about my work earlier today, it really kind of starts playing and making sense. So it's almost like the sound, almost like, because it's one of those things that because a tube amp, you can pick different tubes to create different sounds or different, you can have something that's a warmer sound or a brighter sound or something with a larger sound stage, and this is all I want to get this kind of tube. And so it's almost like you're developing your own personal sound through this electronics that was made. Some of the first listening devices that we had back in the day, I mean, still do it with you, you can do this all with equalizers and stuff too, but it doesn't have the same residence, I guess I should say. It's looking at, if you're a printer and you're looking at a black and white, traditional black and white print to a digital black and white print, if you're a true printer, you'd be like, that's digital, because you're so far advanced in the viewing process of that. So if you're almost listening to a solid state amp versus a tube amp, you might be like, wow, that sounds really good. Wow, that sounds really good. But you might not hear all the nuances. So it's something that I enjoy, you know what I mean? I can't play an instrument, but I can listen, which is good. I do love this idea that you are working with layers in photography, even though when most of us look at an image, we think, oh, that's flat. And technically it is two dimensional, but this description that you have of photography being a layering process, it changes the way I think about that art As a two dimensional artist. I mean, it could be really boring if you thought about it as two dimensions, I think. You know what I mean? So what we do have is we have foreground background, you know what I mean? And we have horizon line, and we have all of these things and we, so we can play around with, so we can play around with the shapes in our image, we can play around with the tonality in the image we can play around with. So we have so many different, we have to use so many different ways to create that space and layering. It could be through tonality, it could be through placement of what's in your image. It could be through framing. It could be through, and all of these things that happen. And to me, I think one of the interesting things about thinking about photography and music is like music layering or music, how they create their sound or, you know what I mean? With music and stuff, if you have a note, you can go above and below and you can play around with different things in different places. It's very similar if you look at some legendary, like Paul Caper Negro who was a classic piano, you know what I mean? That's how he thought about printing. Or even Ansel Adams who, and I'm sure that there's tons more out there that approached it in the same way. So it's not a foreign idea. It's actually, it's a try true way of approaching a visual language. You know what I mean? It, it's this amazing way to think about it because you have this window of something. There was this one photographer who said he was on the Charlie Rose Show, and he's like, is there anything that you haven't, is there something that you haven't photographed that you want to photograph? And the photographer said, the wind. And you think about that in terms of how can you photograph the wind? And so yeah, you'd have to think outside the box, but also you could say the same thing about sound. That sounds to me like someone who listens to a lot of music because the wind does have a sound. And if you could capture the wind, then your image potentially could be considered sound, which is, I don't know, that could be a little bit farfetched, but you know what I'm saying. Well, I do, and I think one of the ways that you and I intersected way, way back was that you also do work with words. You work with people in print, so you are working in parallel with somebody who writes, and you are bringing your own version of that story. You're not necessarily telling the print story the word story, You're bringing your version of that story and you're putting it next to these words, and they still have to work together, I think is really is different than the way a lot of people think about it. A lot of people think, here's the words, the photographer looks at the words and says, oh, I'm going to go take a picture of that word just in a visual. But that's actually not the way that stories evolve, Least not in my experience of writing. So how do you manage working across mediums that you're trying to bring a story into the world? Yeah, I mean, because I love collaborating and trying to, first of all, you have to give great respect to writers, I think, because of what they bring to the table. And you also have to be curious about your subject matter and your subject. And so those come about by just listening, being curious, asking questions, and really being part, and also inviting people into your process so that your process can grow and be better. And so when done, it's an incredibly rewarding and enjoyable thing to do. Yeah, so it's something that I wish I did more of. I mean, some of my favorite books are Langston Hughes and Roy de Carava. It is like sticky, oh geez. Now the Sticky Life of Flypaper, which is an amazing book in it's Langston Hughes Poetry and Roy g Ava's imagery. And it's just wonderful. They were done at different times. And there's also this beautiful book that I got just recently, and it was Richard Avedon and James Baldwin. And this was a great, I mean, it's this magical world that's created between these two masters of their field, and they're collaborating in this way with words and images and mean, I wish I could do it more. But it's really hard. I think sometimes it's really hard to, it's in the editorial world, it's like, well, I like your style and I like your style of photography. I like your style of writing, and we think you're right for this bit and go and do this. You know what I mean? But actual, I think in the fine art world, it's a little trickier because when you're creating in a space, I mean, artists are really, I think, really private. And they go into their battle, they go into their battlefields and they battle it out, and then they go into their workshops, and then they work it out. And then you have to open all that up. And that's a scary process because it's like that space that you've created to protect whatever you're doing, and then you open it up, and that's a different kind of vulnerability than other types of vulnerability. So you have to strive towards it. You have to really work, and you have to really work and realizing that everyone around you is in that same boat. It's just not you that's doing that, but they're doing it too. And how do you collaborate in a way and create that synergy to create a piece of work that everyone's proud of, not just you. Another way that I got to know you as a teacher, and it was by reputation. You've never taught me much to my chagrin. Of course. I think being able to translate what you're saying into something that somebody was a learner can hear is its own set of skills, its own very special creativity. So how have you evolved as a teacher, as an instructor, as someone who's sharing your own knowledge, your own love of this genre? How have you evolved over the years? How I approach it is I try to, okay, so for instance, photography. I try teach photography through life experiences, ask questions about what's going on and tease out, because I think that my goal is for people is to find your own voice, whatever you're doing, so that you can continuously develop it. That doesn't mean everything you're going to do is the same. Your voice can change. I mean, your voice changes constantly or your views change or whatever it is. But to have that knowledge of understanding. So first I have them study. I was like, pick out someone that you like, whatever it is, study them, study them. Try to pick out cues that are on that continuously come over, you know what I mean? And then go back and then revisit all of that material because you'll find a thread, and then you'll start to understand that you'll start to understand the link that they're trying to do. I was going to, if it's a writer, then it wouldn't be a visual, but they could be creating visuals, you know what I mean? Visuals for you to think, but start there and then apply that to life experiences. What is it? There was this one time when I was teaching this guy who was an architect, and he wanted to do photography, and he, and he brought his work body of work, and he had people, he had animals, he had family, and he had these interesting doors that he would photograph. And through looking at his work, I realized it's like, wow, this stuff is good, but this stuff right here, I can see this is where you understand this mean this. This is a very unique way of you seeing this. You're bringing, this is just a plain door, but the way that you approach this door is very unique. You're approaching this door through the lens of an architect where you're giving me more information than I had from just walking up to it and just teasing. And he's like, wow, I never thought about it that way. And so just teasing out those things. And then I'm like, go study Frank Lloyd Wright. You know what I mean? Study these other architects and look, and there's photographs in there, read their writings and stuff. So then you can build up the vocabulary. So then you can build up these other nuances about if this is where you want to go, if this is part of your voice. And also because photography or art is therapeutic in a lot of ways. So sometimes you have to tease out other things as well, just to kind of get to the root of why are you here right now? So yeah, So meeting people where they are and trying to walk along with them. You don't have to be a professional artist to use art as a way of being a better person or, you know what I mean? Or being creative to be a better person. I think that that itself could be a study and self, you know what I mean? There's a lot of critical thinking. There's a lot of failures, there's a lot of successes. There's like, I don't know what this is. You know what I mean? So those are all questions that we ask ourselves every day on, but in a safe space where we can analyze them in a different way. So I think that it comes back to just being observant on what's going on so that you can go ahead and create and also live a better life, be more mindful. Well, I'm really looking forward to your series, your meditative series. When do you think that this will be finished? Well, it's kind of finished right now. It's more me trying to, it's such a departure, and I mean, it's such a departure from what I've done before. It's one of those things that I really have to think some hard, I have to think deep and hard about what and how relevance. And also, there's so many questions I still have about it, and that's a good thing because I'm going to tease out so much more. So yeah, so hopefully next year, okay, hopefully next year, maybe give me two years, maybe. I don't know. It's like I haven't had a solo show in about, I don't know, maybe three years or so. So I'm due, Well, whenever this is brought into the world, I will be very interested in seeing it, Because it Seems like something that we all should be paying attention to, the sitting and being present and experiencing the world in a little bit slower way than we have been. The world's moving really fast. And yeah, it's up to us to, I think sometimes feel like if you don't move at the speed of the world, then you're losing out. And that's not true. You know what I mean? And a lot of times, you're moving at the speed of the world and your relationships suffer. You know what I mean? Your healthcare suffers. All of these other things suffer because you feel like you have to keep up with everything. And I think sometimes you have to step off and just like, whoa, wait a minute. Grab your bearings, refuel, reenergize. And then if your need is to get back up there and do that again, maybe you'd be better at, you might be stronger. So you can keep up with it a little differently. But yeah, so yeah, sometimes we just need to pause for a second. Like, whoa. I really have enjoyed reconnecting with you, Sean, me. It's been a pleasure. Me too. Yeah, it has been a lot of fun. Yeah, it's good. Well, I will be looking for your work. Thank you. I will encourage people who are interested in learning more about Sean Alonzo Harris from Sean Alonzo Harris Photography to go online. And I'm sure that once the show is announced, that will be on your website. So then hopefully you'll go in person to see this work, because I think that's what it really deserves. But in the meantime, it's been a pleasure to talk with Sean Alonzo Harris here on Radio Maine. So thanks so much for coming in today. Thank you for having me. It was fun. Had a great day.